On the TV show Buffy killed humans, directly and indirectly, without consequences, when current story demanded it (The Pack, Revelations, Spiral). Then another story demanded "no killing humans" approach (Bad Girls, Dead Things) and Buffyverse moral twisted accordingly. I think you’re creating inconsistencies unnecessarily by conflating different instances of humans being killed.
In The Pack Buffy throws the zookeeper into the hyena pit after he has been (by his own will) possessed by them ie. chosen not to be human rather as the mayor did when he turned himself into a giant snake. The first instance of the idea that using slayer powers to kill humans is bad appears in Ted although he turns out to be neither dead nor human when Buffy thinks she is she’s ready to accept the legal (as defined by humans) consequences. In Revelations she separates Mrs Post from the glove but it’s unclear that this action will necessarily leads to Post’s death rather than simply remove her source of power. As with the zookeeper it appears that Post has chosen to trade part of her humanity for power and dies by it as he did. In Spiral she kills the knights while under attack by them in self-defence, a defence that human law also accepts. She clearly believes that that killing Warren would be wrong, although whether that is because Warren having undergone no magical tranformation should be dealt with by human laws or because Willow killing him as an act of vengeance would be entering down a path that would destroy Willow is unclear. Also important however is that this comes up in the context of Buffy being asked to consider killing Warren as similar to slaying vampires.
I think the show’s philosophy is quite consistent that Buffy using her Slayer powers to kill humans is bad. Even if it occurs accidentally while patrolling as happened with Deputy Finch and Katrina/Jonathan it’s a very serious matter. However, humans who voluntarily undergo some form of magical transformation in exchange for power no longer seem to be protected by this ‘rule’ and if humans attack her while knowing who she is and what they might expect (as the knights did) she is entitled to fight back. The possibility of human soldiers attacking castle Slayer seems most like the latter situation and she hasn’t said she’s prepared to kill them or let the other Slayers do so in the course of defensive action. When she says she thinks they should fight that’s before Willow’s told her that she may not be able to heal all the wounded in the way she did in issue 4. That healing power was something that Buffy explicitly depended on during that action and once she realises that it won’t always be an option she becomes quite uncertain as to what they should do.
Demons didn't want to rule human world Some demons didn’t but The Master, The First, Illyria and Wolfram and Hart (via the apocalypse) had ambitions to.
Roden who is a powerful wizard, has global plans and wants to dominate humanity. All we know about Roden’s plans are what he’s told Gigi and as it seems unlikely that he’s told her the whole truth or indeed any of it we have no idea what his plans are yet.
If Roden can teleport any person to any place We don’t know he can do that all we seen is that he knows a spell that can call Buffy as “the first of the last.”
It's magic that raises zomby army and neutralizes it. It's magic that abducts people and returns them. So magic seems to cancel itself out as we saw when Warren used Willow’s strength against her – it’s basically a light show and not the determining factor in the battles we’ve seen so far. Buffy defeated Amy by figuring out her psychological weaknesses. Similarily, Roden’s main power seems to be to control a couple of stone demons that Faith killed with her brain.
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Date: 2007-11-11 10:52 pm (UTC)I think you’re creating inconsistencies unnecessarily by conflating different instances of humans being killed.
In The Pack Buffy throws the zookeeper into the hyena pit after he has been (by his own will) possessed by them ie. chosen not to be human rather as the mayor did when he turned himself into a giant snake. The first instance of the idea that using slayer powers to kill humans is bad appears in Ted although he turns out to be neither dead nor human when Buffy thinks she is she’s ready to accept the legal (as defined by humans) consequences. In Revelations she separates Mrs Post from the glove but it’s unclear that this action will necessarily leads to Post’s death rather than simply remove her source of power. As with the zookeeper it appears that Post has chosen to trade part of her humanity for power and dies by it as he did. In Spiral she kills the knights while under attack by them in self-defence, a defence that human law also accepts. She clearly believes that that killing Warren would be wrong, although whether that is because Warren having undergone no magical tranformation should be dealt with by human laws or because Willow killing him as an act of vengeance would be entering down a path that would destroy Willow is unclear. Also important however is that this comes up in the context of Buffy being asked to consider killing Warren as similar to slaying vampires.
I think the show’s philosophy is quite consistent that Buffy using her Slayer powers to kill humans is bad. Even if it occurs accidentally while patrolling as happened with Deputy Finch and Katrina/Jonathan it’s a very serious matter. However, humans who voluntarily undergo some form of magical transformation in exchange for power no longer seem to be protected by this ‘rule’ and if humans attack her while knowing who she is and what they might expect (as the knights did) she is entitled to fight back. The possibility of human soldiers attacking castle Slayer seems most like the latter situation and she hasn’t said she’s prepared to kill them or let the other Slayers do so in the course of defensive action. When she says she thinks they should fight that’s before Willow’s told her that she may not be able to heal all the wounded in the way she did in issue 4. That healing power was something that Buffy explicitly depended on during that action and once she realises that it won’t always be an option she becomes quite uncertain as to what they should do.
Demons didn't want to rule human world
Some demons didn’t but The Master, The First, Illyria and Wolfram and Hart (via the apocalypse) had ambitions to.
Roden who is a powerful wizard, has global plans and wants to dominate humanity.
All we know about Roden’s plans are what he’s told Gigi and as it seems unlikely that he’s told her the whole truth or indeed any of it we have no idea what his plans are yet.
If Roden can teleport any person to any place
We don’t know he can do that all we seen is that he knows a spell that can call Buffy as “the first of the last.”
It's magic that raises zomby army and neutralizes it. It's magic that abducts people and returns them.
So magic seems to cancel itself out as we saw when Warren used Willow’s strength against her – it’s basically a light show and not the determining factor in the battles we’ve seen so far. Buffy defeated Amy by figuring out her psychological weaknesses. Similarily, Roden’s main power seems to be to control a couple of stone demons that Faith killed with her brain.